milk thistle

milk thistle

an herb that is native to Kashmir but is also found in North America from Canada to Mexico.

uses It is used as protection against alcoholic cirrhosis and hepatitis and as an antiinflammatory. Standardized extracts have shown some efficacy for preventing cirrhosis in clinical trails.

contraindications It should not be used during pregnancy and lactation, in children, or in people with hypersensitivity to this herb or other plants in the Asteraceae family.

A herb used for cirrhosis, cholecystitis, hepatitis, possibly related to its content of a flavonoid derivative, silymarin. Milk thistle has been used as an appetite stimulant, a digestive tonic, for mushroom poisoning and, topically, for psoriasisToxicity Milk thistle should not be used in those with liver disease

milk

1. a nutrient fluid produced by the mammary gland of many mammals for the nourishment of their young.

2. a liquid (emulsion or suspension) resembling the secretion of the mammary gland.

reported as a cause of death in neonatal puppies and kittens, presumably resulting from bacterial mastitis or metritis which concurrently lowers the pH of the bitch's milk. See also toxic milk (below).

acidophilus milk

milk fermented with cultures of Lactobacillus acidophilus; used in gastrointestinal disorders to modify the bacterial flora of the intestinal tract.

a prepared milk containing very little salts and sugars and a large amount of fat and casein.

milk chickens

very young chickens weighing 0.5 to 1 lb (0.25 to 0.50 kg); birds up to 2 lb (1.0 kg) are accepted. Called also poussins.

milk coagulation

coagulation of milk in the abomasum of the calf, precipitated by rennin, the enzyme produced by the abomasal mucosa, converts the dissolved casein into a rubbery clot. See also chymosin.

condensed milk

milk that has been partly evaporated and sweetened with sugar.

milk cow, milch cow

cow used expressly for the production of milk for human consumption.

days in milk (DIM)

the number of days during a lactation that a cow has been milking, beginning with the last date of calving to the current test date.

milk dentition

the dentition of sucklings, the deciduous teeth.

dialyzed milk

milk from which the sugar has been removed by dialysis through a parchment membrane.

milk drinker's syndrome

metastatic calcification in young animals kept on high milk intakes for long periods.

milk drop syndrome

a sudden and often unexplained fall in milk production in a dairy herd. It can occur when any disease or condition affects a significant proportion of a herd at one time; identified causes include poisoning by Neotyphodium(Acremonium) coeniophialum or Claviceps purpurea, infection with Leptospira hardjo, severe combined nutritional and environmental stress.

milk-ejection reflex

filling of the teat and udder cisterns with milk in response to teat stimulation, the response being effected via a release of oxytocin from the posterior pituitary; called also letdown.

a neonate still being suckled by the dam or being reared on artificial milk replacer.

milk fever

a metabolic disease of mature dairy cows occurring just before or soon after calving; signs are muscular weakness, peripheral circulatory failure with cool skin, small amplitude pulse, soft heart sounds, recumbency and drowsiness. Definitive clinical pathology is hypocalcemia. The same syndrome occurs in ewes; called also moss-ill.

milk flake

fine, flat sheets of fibrin as part of the inflammatory process in the cow's udder, especially in cases of coliform mastitis.

milk flow sensor

a sensor fitted in the long milk tube from the cluster to the milk line which is sensitive to the rate of flow; designed to trigger the automatic removal of the cluster when the rate of flow of milk in the milk tube falls below a predetermined level.

fortified milk

milk made more nutritious by addition of cream, egg white or vitamins.

milk harvesting

the process of producing, extracting and storing milk on the farm.

homogenized milk

milk treated so that the fats form a permanent emulsion and the cream does not separate.

milk impacts

drops of milk from other teat cups propelled vigorously against the teat ends of susceptible-to-mastitis quarters during, and as a result of teat cup liner slips.

teats which drip milk between milkings have defective external sphincters and are susceptible to infection. Also occurs when the udder is very full, e.g. just before calving, or when letdown has occurred prior to milking when the intramammary pressure exceeds the closing forces of the normal teat end sphincter.

in cows the period during early lactation when the amount of milk produced per day is higher than at any other time. In bitches and queens, maximum lactation is achieved at 3-4 weeks postpartum.

milk persistency

rate of decline of milk production from the peak. This is in effect the duration of the cow's production of an amount of milk which is worth harvesting; in commercial dairying cows are usually dried off when their daily yield falls to less than 4 liters. In good herds most cows are dried off because they have been in milk for the specified duration.

milk pipeline

a stainless steel or glass pipe used for transporting milk by gravity to storage. May be above the milking units (high line) or below the level of the units (low line).

milk production

1. the secretion of milk by the mammary epithelium.

2. the volume of milk produced, usually quoted for a year or a lactation, sometimes quoted as kg of butterfat or of milk solids produced. Used as the benchmark of productivity of dairy cows.

milk production data

records of volume and components of milk produced by individual cows or the whole herd, either actually measured, or aspirated from periodic samplings.

milk modified to have a relatively low content of carbohydrate and fat and a relatively high protein content.

milk replacer

used as replacement for milk in calf, lamb and piglet diets to permit early weaning and to rear orphans. Milk replacers are manufactured from dried milk products but may contain large amounts of animal fats, nonmilk carbohydrates and proteins. The dried milk powder used may also have been denatured during heat treatment. Poor replacers cause dietary diarrhea. Should contain less than 0.1% plant fiber, 36-40% lactose, 30-40% fat, 28-32% milk protein.

milk replacer malnutrition

malnutrition in calves fed on poorly formulated milk replacer.

milk ring test

is used for surveillance of brucellosis prevalence in dairy cattle. It depends on the presence of agglutinable antibodies in the milk and the agglutination of added stained antigen by antibodies in the milk of positive reacting cows.

milk sample culturing

from cows may be composite of all quarters in one sample or single quarter samples. Samples must be refrigerated until cultured. Culture on sheep blood agar is standard but many special media available for particular purposes.

milk scald

alopecic dermatitis around the muzzle of bucket-fed calves caused by frequent immersion in milk.

milk sickness

the disease of humans caused by the drinking of milk from cows which have been eating eupatoriumrugosum; the milk contains tremetol.

Various parts of the milk thistle, particularly seeds possessing antioxidant, antifungal and immunomodulator potential are in use of alternative medical practitioners for treatment of variety of disorders.

Traditionally milk thistle has been used for disorders of the liver, spleen and gallbladder, to stimulate milk production in lactating mothers, for haemorrhoids, for dyspepsia and as a demulcent for catarrah and pleurisy.

Milk thistle contains a unique mixture of polyphenolic compounds, among which the main subclass comprises the flavonolignans silychristin, silydianin, silybin and isosilybin (together known as silymarin).

Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate silymarin absorption and metabolism in human volunteers by means of high performance liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) as an essential step on the road to finally verifying the putative health-related effects of milk thistle.

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